'It was like a dream year'
Aleksa Rakic took some big steps in his figure skating development during the 2023-24 season. Now he's in a prime position to challenge for a Canadian title ... and a whole lot more.
Ask Aleksa Rakic about his path to the podium at the 2024 Canadian figure skating championships and he’ll take you right back to the building where it happened on a frigid January evening in Calgary. But not exactly that frosty occasion in southern Alberta that those of us who were there won’t soon forget.
Rather, it was an earlier visit to WinSport Events Centre — the 2023 World Junior Championships — that the talented teenager will tell you set the stage for a season he doesn’t hesitate to call the best of his still young skating career. Rakic would go on to finish 13th in his debut at that competition, but came away from it with a wealth of inspiration and motivation. And he put plenty of effort into acting upon it.
“It went all the way back to March of (2023). I finished my first Junior Worlds and there was something about that experience that motivated me in a way that my training improved so much like never before,” explains the 19-year-old Rakic, who trains under the tutelage of coach Joanne McLeod at the Champs International Skating Center of British Columbia in Burnaby, a Vancouver suburb. “I improved so much in that time period that when I would show up at a competitions, I would get compliments from people like ‘wow, you’ve improved a lot.’”
And show up at competitions, Rakic most surely did. Four times over the summer months, then three more events in the fall. That gave him a wealth of competition experience before gliding onto the ice at nationals in Calgary. But more important were the lessons learned along the way about how to turn those hours of practice into success when the lights turn on for real.
“The year before, I struggled in competition. But people maybe don’t know that I was training well at home. I could do everything. So the problem, partially, was showing it, too. So then my coach and I, we got together, we talked and we looked at examples of other high-performance athletes and what they do to help themselves,” he said. “And we decided to compete a lot. So last year, I competed in June, in July and then two times in August. It was more than other competitors, maybe, but it really helped me figure out my routine and how to compete. So when nationals came, I was very well trained, and I had figured out what I was doing (in competitions). I had a good feeling and I knew I could be on the podium, which was really nice.”
All of that manifested itself at nationals, especially on the final night of the men’s event, when Rakic was the best on the ice by a clear margin of nearly seven points after posting a free skate score of 149.90. But it wasn’t enough to reel in Wesley Chiu, who had built up a lead of 13.49 points after the short program and held on to claim his first Canadian title. But Rakic was all smiles as he stood on the senior national podium for the first time — he was the Canadian junior champion in 2019 — moving up 10 spots from his finish at 2023 Canadians in Oshawa, Ontario.
“It was more so just meaningful to me because there were many times that maybe I doubted (myself). I knew I could be good enough, but could I actually do it?” Rakic said of his magical free skate. “It was proof to me that all the hard work was worth it and I’m capable of it. It was just very meaningful.”
Rakic took all of that momentum and confidence back to World Juniors at the end of February, this time in Taipei City. While he would finish eighth overall in the men’s event, his personal best score of 211.74 was only 3.21 points shy of the top five. It was a result made all the more remarkable when you learn Rakic could barely walk just days before he and McLeod hopped on the plane to Taiwan, thanks to a freaky mishap during training for the event.
“It went very great considering the circumstances. A week before, I took a fluke fall on a quad toe — I don’t know, I rushed, slipped on a pick, fell back and hit my left glute area. It hit (the ice) so strong in a weird way that my whole side became inflamed and I couldn’t move my leg. I could barely walk at first,” he explained. “It happened on Tuesday and Saturday night we were leaving. I was terrified because I was thinking, am I going to have to withdraw? But luckily, me and my coach, we made a good plan, we have a good team … I was able to see a doctor here quickly and a physiotherapist. By the Friday, I was able to do all of my jumps. It still hurt a lot, but I was able to do everything. At first, I could barely walk or skate.
“So I missed basically a whole week of training and then we had to fly there. I was being treated as I was competing that whole week. I’m very thankful to the team there, the physiotherapists. I owe them a lot. By the time the competition came, that was finally when I was basically feeling no pain.”
While the fall rattled his bones, it did nothing to shake his confidence. And Rakic got his Junior Worlds off to an “amazing” start with a stellar short program that produced a personal best score of 77.74 that left him in fourth place, less than a point shy of a podium position. But he couldn’t match that effort in the more demanding free skate and slipped four spots to eighth.
“The long program … I’m still frustrated about it, the two spins at the end, just didn’t count my rotations and I lost my levels and points. But overall, it was a good competition and something I’m proud of,” he said. “If (the injury) hadn’t happened, I possibly could have been on the podium. We feel it was possible. But it’s life, the outcome is what it was and I’m happy with it … I was able to make the final flight for the long, which was one of my goals.”
That event also marked the final chapter of Rakic’s junior career. He’s a full-fledged senior now, has a spot on the Canadian national team and has been assigned to Skate Canada International this fall in Halifax. But that won’t exactly be his Grand Prix Series debut — Rakic was called into duty at that event last fall as a late injury replacement for Roman Sadovsky. As luck would have it, the event was held in Vancouver, right in his backyard (Rakic not only trains in Burnaby, he and his family live there, too).
“It was a lot of emotions because it was here in Vancouver as well, where I live. So my first Grand Prix and also at home … I had family and friends there and the kids at the rink I train with, they all came,” he said. “It was a lot to deal with but I learned a lot. I feel like it was a very forming experience for me for my future. It was more (of a rush job) mentally to get ready, because physically I was training my programs. But it was just mentally, when we got the call, how do I get into competition mode?”
Let’s just say he had lots of practice in that area. As we mentioned earlier, there were the four summer competitions. Then he jetted off to Germany in late September for Nebelhorn Trophy, a Challenger Series event at which he placed fifth. Then came Skate Canada about a month later.
“It’s a competition where judges do all of their testing and I showed a good performance there. So I think that was good for the marketing of me, I guess,” he said. “By that time — I had also done the four summer competitions — I was in a rhythm of competing.”
Rakic expects he’ll be better prepared for Skate Canada this October, being that he’s already on the entry list and has a full summer to prepare (this time, his competition schedule won’t be as jam-packed. Right now, it includes a summer event at the end of July in Philadelphia, followed by the B.C. Summer Skate in August).
“Being more calm,” he says with an eye toward Halifax in October. “Last year was a little overwhelming with everything going on, and some of the top skaters in the world there, which was a little bit (much) to skate with. A little too much for the mind, maybe. This year, I can go in knowing what to expect. I can just try to do my best.”
None of this was part of the plan, you should know, when Rakic was a youngster just getting his athletic feet wet. His original sport of choice was gymnastics, but it turned out to be just a brief dalliance (which may have been a good thing. Rakic now stands 5-foot-11). Then the ice came calling in a big way when he was eight years old.
“My (gymnastics) coach was pushing me too much and I told my mom, ‘I’m just a kid. I don’t need this.’ So I ended up quitting gymnastics, but my mom wanted me to be active and do something,” he explained. “They put me into CanSkate, and eventually I ended up doing the program here in Burnaby. I remember walking by the figure skating rink and seeing Kevin (Reynolds) and Jeremy (Ten) doing everything, and I said to my mom ‘this is interesting. I’d like to try this.’ That’s basically where it started. I tried it and here I am.”
(an aside: you might notice a little bit of Reynolds in Rakic’s skating. They’ve both got a tall, lanky build and their jumping style is similar).
And the rink now called Scotia Barn has been Rakic’s home away from home ever since. It’s where he teamed up with McLeod and he considers it the best place for him to keep growing as a skater.
“I’ve worked with (McLeod) since I was nine or 10 years old. And I started skating in that rink. So our relationship is very close. She knows how to push me in ways that just make me improve,” he said. “I have a bit of a comfort at the rink. I started figure skating there, it’s close to my house … it’s a 10-15 minute drive to it. I’ve been there my whole skating life. I can’t imagine being anywhere else (he’d like to be a coach there after he’s done with skating).”
While one might think the Vancouver 2010 Olympics played a role in inspiring Rakic’s skating dreams, he was only six years old at the time and had yet to pick up the sport (he does remember the buzz the Games created in the city). Rather, he points to the 2014 Winter Games of Sochi as an early inspiration.
“(Sochi) is the earliest one that I watched. And especially because Kevin Reynolds, who trained at my rink, went to it,” he said. “(Canada) got the team silver and I remember when they came back, there was a little ceremony for him and he brought the medal. I got to touch it, which was really cool.”
Ask Rakic about his skating idols, though, and the name he presents to you isn’t someone who wore the red maple leaf in competition.
“I watched a lot of and I looked up to Evgeny Plushenko,” he says of the Russian star, who won gold at the 2006 Turin Winter Games in addition to three World titles (he also led Russia to the team gold in Sochi). “To me, he was the greatest mix of athleticism and technique, and had a performance way about him that captivated me. And he had the results. Being who he was, for me it was ‘that’s the guy.’”
While Rakic has Olympic dreams of his own — he’s among a group of Canadian men who are targeting the 2026 Winter Games in Milan-Cortina — he prefers to keep his viewpoint a little more shorter term. And with that, there is a season ahead to plan out. He’ll take a new long program into the 2024-25 campaign, while retaining his short program from last season, skated to “Biblical,” by Calum Scott, and “Epiphany,” by Karl Hugo. It was crafted by his long-time choreographer Mark Pillay (“Been with him since first-year junior, back in 2018, I think. Long relationship with him”).
For the free skate, he and McLeod chose to team up with renowned French choreographer Benoit Richaud. Rakic loved the experience.
“It was my first time working with him and I really enjoyed it; he was great. It’s different from what I’ve done before, but yet it still feels like me,” said Rakic. “It’s harder to do, I feel, a lower body move than anything. The training of it was harder than in past years with a new program, but then once I sort of got into it, it became easier and I’m really enjoying it.”
The program features three pieces of music: the first from the soundtrack of the 2005 French movie, “Va, Vis et deviens,” by Armand Amar. “Then it switches into a contemporary piece of music called “Steppe” (by Rene Aubry), and the last piece is, I think by a quartet, and it’s another instrumental piece (“Uncovered,” by Joseph William Morgan),” said Rakic. “The music really builds to the end, and the last piece is a step sequence and powerful.”
Rakic believes the new composition will show a different side of his skating.
“Normally, my long programs would be a little slower, just to be able to breathe and get through everything, and also the past couple of years, it was figuring out how to compete and be solid in all of my elements,” he said. “And I feel last season, I more or less figured all of that out. This year, we really wanted to add some intricate choreography throughout then program and make it stand out and get some higher (program component) scores.”
On the technical side, Rakic is hoping to incorporate a second quadruple jump (the Salchow) into his long program by season’s end (he and McLeod have also played around with the quad Lutz and loop, but neither is near competition ready).
“The quad Sal, I’ve never competed it, but I’ve been training it the whole time,” he said. “So (I’m) continuing to train that and hopefully this year, I’ll be able to show it in competition.”
While a Canadian title is surely now on his radar, Rakic talks about simpler goals when he looks toward his first season as a full-fledged senior.
“Now that I’ve finished my junior career, (it’s about) trying to keep on improving, seeing where I fit in among the top seniors,” he said. “It would be nice to jump up that one spot at nationals. A lot of hard work would have to go into it, but I think it’s possible.”
Rarely has the opportunity to win that national title ever been as wide open. Chiu and Sadovsky are still in the picture, and a healthy Stephen Gogolev has to be considered a threat. Anthony Paradis made an impression in Calgary back in January. There’s also a path to Milan in 2026 for all to see.
“It’s a big motivator,” said Rakic. “Last year, with Keegan (Messing, the Canadian champion in 2022 and 2023, and a two-time Olympian) retiring, people would be talking about other skaters, but I knew I could possibly be one of them.”
One, of course, is the operative number here. That’s the number of men’s spots Canada is down to for 2025 Worlds in Boston, the event that will also determine the allotments for the ensuing Olympics. A pressure cooker awaits them all at 2025 Canadians in Laval, Quebec.
“It’ll be tense, but I’ll probably try not to think about it. Just do my job and see what happens,” Rakic says of the situation facing Canada’s top men. “When it’s one spot, you know basically it’s going to be the champion, unless they have a skate-off at Four Continents (which happened this year before Chiu and Sadovsky were selected to go to Worlds in Montreal). The pressure is higher with one spot, but then it’ll come down to who is the most prepared mentally, the strongest maybe to handle the pressure. Which is what we need for (the men’s skater who earns) that one spot.”
It’s the kind of confidence Rakic gained in a most memorable season.
“Maybe some results, people could look at and say ‘oh, it wasn’t great.’ But to me, looking at it as a whole, it was the best season,” Rakic said in reflecting on last season. “Training throughout the whole year … my coach said it was like a dream year. It was very good and I felt like I was improving all the time. And even with the bad things, I learned from it and it helped me grow.”
Canada’s last appeal
The long and winding road toward final resolution of the medal standings in the Team Event at the Beijing 2022 Olympics is approaching the finish line.
The final appeal on the matter will be held July 22 in Lausanne, Switzerland — four days before the opening of the Paris Olympics — the Court of Arbitration for Sport said on Friday. Team Event medals have yet to be awarded in the wake of the doping scandal surrounding Russian skater Kamila Valieva, who was disqualified from the Beijing Games and handed a four-year ban from the sport by a different panel of CAS judges in January. Following that ruling, the International Skating Union stripped Valieva’s points in the Team Event and upgraded the United States to the gold medal and Japan to silver. However, because points were not added to teams behind Russia in the standings (you know, what many saw as the logical thing for them to do), Canada remained in fourth place in the final standings. That prompted Skate Canada to launch an appeal of the results.
(three Russian appeals were also launched in at attempt to regain the gold medal. Those were heard June 12, but the verdicts have yet to be published).
The International Olympic Committee’s executive board has final say on the allocation of medals. The plan, as it now stands, is to finally award those medals before the Closing Ceremony at the Paris Summer Games.
If Skate Canada’s appeal is successful, a team including the following skaters would be upgraded to a bronze medal: Piper Gilles, Paul Poirier, Kirsten Moore-Towers, Michael Marinaro, Vanessa James, Eric Radford, Maddie Schizas and Roman Sadovsky, a late fill-in for Keegan Messing.